Discovery BoxEzekiel 6:4-5 
Context6:4 Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. 1 6:5 I will place the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols, 2 and I will scatter your bones around your altars.
Ezekiel 7:20
Context7:20 They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride, 3 and with it they made their abominable images – their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them.
Ezekiel 14:5-6
Context14:5 I will do this in order to capture the hearts of the house of Israel, who have alienated themselves from me on account of all their idols.’
14:6 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Return! Turn from your idols, and turn your faces away from your abominations.
Ezekiel 18:12
Context18:12 oppresses the poor and the needy, 4 commits robbery, does not give back what was given in pledge, prays to 5 idols, performs abominable acts,
Ezekiel 18:15
Context18:15 He does not eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains, does not pray to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife,
Ezekiel 20:16
Context20:16 I did this 6 because they rejected my regulations, did not follow my statutes, and desecrated my Sabbaths; for their hearts followed their idols. 7
Ezekiel 20:18
Context20:18 “‘But I said to their children 8 in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, 9 nor defile yourselves with their idols.
Ezekiel 20:24
Context20:24 I did this 10 because they did not observe my regulations, they rejected my statutes, they desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on 11 their fathers’ idols.
Ezekiel 20:30
Context20:30 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Will you defile yourselves like your fathers 12 and engage in prostitution with detestable idols?
Ezekiel 36:18
Context36:18 So I poured my anger on them 13 because of the blood they shed on the land and because of the idols with which they defiled it. 14
Ezekiel 36:25
Context36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water 15 and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.
Ezekiel 44:10
Context44:10 “‘But the Levites who went far from me, straying off from me after their idols when Israel went astray, will be responsible for 16 their sin.
1 tn Thirty-nine of the forty-eight biblical occurrences of this Hebrew word are found in the book of Ezekiel.
sn This verse is probably based on Lev 26:30 in which God forecasts that he will destroy their high places, cut off their incense altars, and set their corpses by the corpses of their idols.
2 tc This first sentence, which explains the meaning of the last sentence of the previous verse, does not appear in the LXX and may be an instance of a marginal explanatory note making its way into the text.
3 tc The MT reads “he set up the beauty of his ornament as pride.” The verb may be repointed as plural without changing the consonantal text. The Syriac reads “their ornaments” (plural), implying עֶדְיָם (’edyam) rather than עֶדְיוֹ (’edyo) and meaning “they were proud of their beautiful ornaments.” This understands “ornaments” in the common sense of women’s jewelry, which then were used to make idols. The singular suffix “his ornaments” would refer to using items from the temple treasury to make idols. D. I. Block points out the foreshadowing of Ezek 16:17 which, with Rashi and the Targum, supports the understanding that this is a reference to temple items. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:265.
4 sn The poor and needy are often mentioned together in the OT (Deut 24:14; Jer 22:16; Ezek 14:69; Ps 12:6; 35:10; 37:14).
5 tn Heb “lifts up his eyes.”
6 tn The words “I did this” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons. Verses 15-16 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text. The translation divides this sentence into two for stylistic reasons.
7 tn Heb “for after their idols their heart was going.” The use of the active participle (“was going”) in the Hebrew text draws attention to the ongoing nature of their idolatrous behavior.
8 tn Heb “sons,” reflecting the patriarchal idiom of the culture.
9 tn Or “standard of justice.” See Ezek 7:27.
10 tn The words “I did this” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons. Verses 23-24 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text. The translation divides this sentence into two for stylistic reasons.
11 tn Or “they worshiped” (NCV, TEV, CEV); Heb “their eyes were on” or “were after” (cf. v. 16).
12 tn Heb “in the way of your fathers.”
13 sn See Ezek 7:8; 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:22; 30:15.
14 sn For the concept of defiling the land in legal literature, see Lev 18:28; Deut 21:23.
15 sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.
16 tn Heb “will bear.”
